Worthy
by Virodeil
Summary: What defines "family"? What defines "friend"? What defines "enemy"? – Words are just that, words, and yet people still strive to put meanings to the meaningless, emotions to the emotionless, and action to the actionless. Tony Stark is not an exception to this, and his own meanings, his own emotions, his own actions make everything get complicated, fast, after the Chitauri invasion.
1. Chapter 1

Worthy  
By Rey

 **What defines "family"? What defines "friend"? What defines "enemy"? – Words are just that, words, and yet people still strive to put meanings to the meaningless, emotions to the emotionless, and action to the actionless. Tony Stark is not an exception to this, and his own meanings, his own emotions, his own actions make everything get complicated,** _ **fast**_ **, after a bunch of outworlders invade his home. If only everything he owns – from his tower to his image – wouldn't be ruined by that…. But then, maybe, with such a price, he could be considered** _ **worthy**_ **…?**

Story tags: Present Tense, POV Tony stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Alternate Universe - Avengers (Marvel Movies), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Single-Gendered Species, Intersex Jotunn (Marvel), Confusions abound, Unreliable Narrator, Age Difference, Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Family Baggage

Chapter tags: Uneasy Allies, Canon-Typical Violence, Protective Tony stark, Internalised Racism, Racist Language, Berserker Thor, Childbirth, violence/abusive scenes, Body Horror

Chapter summary: There is _yet another_ alien in Stark Tower. So of course, Tony invites them in. And then, all hale breaks loose….

Chapter 1

Tony Stark – engineer, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist – totters and wobbles on his feet inside the battered, semi functioning Iron Man suit, sans the helmet.

Quite a damn shame. This should be my "hour of glory," right?

Nope. I'm feeling pretty shitty. If this is what Point Break meant by "a glorious battle," then I want no part of it, in it, ever, _ever_ again.

My beloved penthouse looks barely recognisable, for one, full of broken walls and broken windows and broken tiles – bloody _craters_ on the floor.

 _And there's a_ _ **broken body**_ _inside one of those_. Even if it's Reindeer Games, who threw me out of my own window _from the fucking hundredth floor_ … who mind-controlled people like there's no tomorrow… who wanted to rule earth, who opened a portal to freaking _outer space in the middle of nowhere_ for a destroying army _to invade earth_.

Who lies there _in Loki-shaped crater_ looking positively dishevelled and wrong-angled and _so very small_ ….

Damn. So fucking damn. Why don't I feel delighted? He's the _enemy_ , for tech's sake!

But, and this is for two, I feel so dead exhausted _with everything_. And the "dead" part isn't truly just figurative, either. I nearly _died_ in the middle of nowhere in total vacuum and I couldn't call Pepper and Jarvis was gone at the last moment and….

"Wha?"

Huh. Apparently, the world isn't done with fucking me all to hell yet.

Somebody has just _materialised from thin air_ beside the crater that contains Loki, a few metres away. Without a sound. Without any prior visual hint, at that. – A girl with no boobs to boast about, or maybe a boy with effeminate looks. Tall and well-built if almost skinny, but definitely _still a_ _ **young**_ _teenager_. Light brown eyes, pitch black hair, vampiric white skin, light brown skinsuit adorned with a different crest on each breast, looking so lost and bewildered as if they're concussed….

Cap raises his shield, _ready to throw_. Agent Legolas raises his _knocked_ bow. Point Break raises his _sparking_ huge hammer. Agent Pretender _shifts_ her stance.

I don't raise my repulsor-mounted hands, let alone activating the weapons.

Cap glares sidewise at me. But Brucey, who is seated slumped on the floor beside me, says and does nothing; just staring blankly at our latest uninvited guest, just like me.

I ignore the former, and help the latter to stand, though I nearly fall sprawling on the floor for that.

I just… _can't_. That… girl's? Boy's? Well, that _whoever's_ skinsuit might double as armour or something, judging from how it glitters ever so slightly, like condensed or integrated metal fibre, but they're _unarmed_. And to say that their stance is as deadly as Agent Pretender's is in her best pretence would be like saying Tony Stark has the IQ of thirty and the net wealth of twenty bucks and an awesome dad.

I dealt with the military. I dealt with crazy people who tortured folks just for their weapons. I dealt with Agent Calm-As-You-Wish Coulson. And this one is just… _not_.

I'm not going to raise my weapons against a lost kid, alien or not.

And this tower is _mine_ , no other's, so I'm the King here, and my wish is what matters.

 _So_ , even though I'd rather eat the shawarma I promised this Timebomb Team and sleep for a year afterward and forget about all of this, I address the said lost kid instead, in my best salesman tone: "Hello! Lost your way, kid? You shouldn't be here, y'know. It's still a battlefield. Want me to get you to the ground floor?"

The kid, still looking dazed and disoriented, snaps their attention to me.

Eerie.

Those pretty light brown eyes, they look young, yes, but there's a certain paradoxically old quality there that screams ` _alien dude here, buddy_ `, even more than Point Break. But even more than that, there's a haunting guilt and sadness and desperation in there that doesn't belong to a teen's look, ever.

I gulp. "Hey, buddy. You with me?"

"I…. I…, no…, I apologise…," the kid stutters, sounding so lost that I expect they'll be physically floundering next.

But they don't. They even manage to pull themself together with the next deep breath. Now they seem somehow… princely humble, down to their next words, which are spoken in a mild, cultured tone that nonetheless conceals nothing behind it, including how lost they're feeling: "My apologies, Earth-dweller. I had no intention to intrude in your abode, nor in your battle. I was seeking my kin-sibling, and my Working led me here. I just… failed to find them anywhere nearby, somehow."

Cute.

"Ah." It's me who flounders, _un_ amusingly, though thankfully it's not physically manifested, either.

 _But_ , before I can ask if they're maybe Loki's sibling, cause they kinda, sorta share some similar features, Cap oh so primly _interrupts_ this perfectly civil, perfectly nice conversation between an awesome engineer and a polite alien. "Where are your parents, son? This is still a battlefield. It's too dangerous for you to be here. Let me escort you down to the ground floor," he says, in a rather condescending tone that makes my teeth _ache_.

Then, with all righteousness, Captain bloody America steps forward, breaking the loose half circle that the Timebomb Team _as a whole_ has been subconsciously maintaining round the insensate, pitiful body of Reindeer Games.

And the alien teen stops him dead with a _look_.

Granted, if that look were aimed at me, I'd be wary, too. Not the sort of filthy, indignant look teens the world over give their parents or elders or temporary caretakers for disrupting their fun, and neither the haughty ` _I am a prince so stop me on your peril you mortals_ ` look that Loki _and_ Thor often sport.

No. It's the look that raises my hair on end with its message and how tragically, frighteningly displaced it is on the face of somebody that should still muck about with their pals in junior high.

` _I have already been dead for a long time. I can't be deader, so do you want to try me?_ `

I don't want to; try that look, that is. So I try to wrestle back control of the situation instead. It's _my_ tower, anyway.

"What's your name, kid? And what's your… kin-sibling's name? Maybe I can help you? Sorry for Cap over there, by the way. Now he's gonna step back into place and shut up for a while. And that goes for the others, too."

 _But_ , instead of the answer _from the kid_ , a mini pandemonium breaks, perpetrated by _the Timebomb Team_.

"Stark!"  
"Man of Iron."  
"Not a wise choice, Mister Stark."  
"You fuckin' kiddin' us, Stark?!"

"My place, my word," I snap back, without letting my eyes wander away from the kid, who is now visibly tensing for something that might be bad for us or them or _all_ of us. Then, in a milder, semi urgent tone to the alien – now invited guest – standing a few yards away, I pick my earlier words right back up, "So, kid? We don't have much time, sorry to say. Gi'm the name and I'll help you. But tell me yours, too. Unless you want me to call you 'kid' all the time?"

"Names have power, Earth-dweller," the kid says, staring right into my eyes with guarded desperation.

I bob my head. "Heard that," I agree easily. "Won't help any of us in this case, though, huh? So how 'bout this? I'm Tony Stark, or Anthony Edward Stark if you wanna get very, very, very formal, which I hate by the way, and I'm also Iron Man, as you probably can see. Stark International is mine, and this tower belongs to it, so it's mine too. So?"

The kid bows their head rather regally, but their words aren't audible in my physical ears, and start with, ` _Do not answer me aloud when we are conversing in this way, Earth-dweller. – I am honoured with your trust and welcome, and would like to repay you in like manner. However, none of your companions have offered such courtesy to me. If you give me your word that you shall not divulge what I will tell you here to them or anyone else without my permission, I shall tell you my name and more besides._ `

"Huh," I mutter dumbly, mind-lagged for once in a very, very long time, and flinch from the unexpected mode of communication. But still, especially with how there's no brain-to-mouth filter to overcome, and it's doubtful anyway – according to so many people – that I've got one in the first place, the requested acknowledgement comes through, in some sort of mental nod that I usually give only to myself and my own achievements and things I think about.

"Tony?" Brucey murmurs in concern, even as he sways on his feet and ends up leaning heavily against my own not quite steady self, while applying a death grip on his torn trousers.

"Ah, I'm all right, buddy," I tell him, even as something invisible seems to help prop me up; something with the inexplicable flavour of the kid's _fucking real_ telepathic words. Then, maybe on a whim, or maybe I'm feeling generous and want to share the privelege of the experience, or maybe pushed by something else that I don't want to think about, I continue with, "Wanna introduce yourself to our guest, brucey?"

It's my science bro's time to let out a stupid, "Huh." But to his credit, he recovers in seconds despite his no-doubt lingering wooziness from the extended Hulk times, straightens up a little, and _does_ introduce himself, slurring out, "Am Bruce, Bruce Banner. Scientist. Doctor. Nuclear Physics 'n' Biotechnology. Medical doctor by necessity… 'n' half a choice. Hope you won't ever meet the Monster. My failed s'periment, that. Calls 'mself Hulk."

The gaze of the alien kid, now trained on Brucey, is shrewd and contemplative. I tense up a little, for a reason I don't know – or maybe I just don't want to contemplate it. But thankfully, the kid just gives my science bro the same regal head-bow that they gave me.

Judging from how Brucey jerks a little on his place glued to my side, he's just gotten the same mental experience following that, too.

And then, the kid fulfils their bargain, with a _lack_ of mental composure, similar to their prior interaction with me, despite their calm physical bearing.

It results in a hell of a _foreign_ emotional helter-skelter.

` _My dam named me Býleistr._ ` Wistful ambiguity. ` _My sire and nurser called me Leí._ ` Desperate yearning. ` _I am the second child of the late Monarch-Consort, Grant General Farbauti of Ýmirheim._ ` Pride and wariness. ` _I came here seeking my surviving kin-sibling, younger than I am by a thousand years._ ` Horrible, crushing guilt, held quietly and faithfully for so long. ` _I displaced them at the end of the war in the temple just inside the palace's grounds._ ` The same guilt, the same desperate yearning, now flavoured with self-disgust and long-born sensation of uncleanness. ` _I heard the children were to be named Loptr and Loki._ ` Envy for a coveted position, adding to the guilt and desperation and uncleanness. ` _I do not know what name my kin-sibling took afterwards, given by whoever bore them away from the temple, but I know they are still alive and can be located in this very place._ ` Loss; longing to make it up to an unknown but long-thought-of family member; fear of utter rejection by the said family member; resignation to being struck dead by the said family member later on in vengeance. ` _One thousand two hundred and ninety four years old. They are still a child, if not so little anymore…._ ` Grief and guilt on witnessing an adored parent's long-held sorrow; deep regret on so much lost time unrecoverable; faithful determination to make it all right again. ` _I beg of you, Anthony Edward Stark and Bruce Banner, as a kin-sibling of the child and a nursling of the child's dam: Please assist me in finding the child and returning them to their dam._ ` Solemn vow to make it all right again. ` _My sire, the Monarch of Ýmirheim, will no doubt reward you well for the return of one of their womb-children._ ` The desperate yearning again, tinged heavily with desolation and resignation for an expected reward of death for themself. ` _They will have one of the twins in their arms, in the least, if never the pair anymore, for the unforgivable deed that I and my womb-sibling committed on that day._ `

I reel back, so does Brucey, but the invisible force from earlier easily keeps us upright.

The invisible prop is bloody useful next, as flitting glimpses of a battle between aliens – ` _So blue and so huge! And where did those bulky, blondy, beardy medieval humans come from?_ ` – appear, followed directly by a brief look at a blue-alien, deep-voiced… mum? Dad? Mum-dad?… with roundish belly straining and sobbing painfully and weakly in labour, with the bonus of copious amounts of silver-blue, blue-black blood _and other things_ spilling between… her? Him? Their?… shaking legs – ` _Damn. The plight of mothers everywhere in the universe, apparently. Poor darling mom._ ` – and ending with an all too vivid and lingering image of a little – ` _Still bloody!_ ` – clear-blue-skinned, solid-red-eyed baby alien crying its newborn lungs out on a stone table, barely wrapped in a measly piece of torn, coarse fabric and set beside a blue glowy box.

"Oh damn. I need _time_ , kid," I croak out, once I've recovered slightly. "Don't dump in all the info at once! You're making me age a decade with all that, n'I'm no longer an awesome teensy teen to begin with."

Ironically, no actual time seems to have passed since the second this little dude with so much baggage began with their metaphisical PowerPoint presentation, judging from the puzzled look the others throw me and Brucey for the no-doubt quick and inexplicable changes to our demeanours. – Or maybe it's just for my latest comment and Brucey's grunted agreement to that. But _still_ , it's the thought that counts.

And now…, "Man of Iron?" Point Break rumbles inquiringly, but with an edge of suspicion and wariness that I don't like.

I shake my head, still looking at the outwardly calm kid across the Loki crater. "Later, Point Break. – Erh, kid? Can I call you Bee? – Well all right all right, not Bee then. Bob? Well, Bob, so you put your lil sib out of the way in a temple during the end of your war? And they weren't there anymore when you came back for them?"

The kid, having acted like a shocked, scolded cat when I called them Bee, gives the recap a short, approving hum-grunt, which may be their kind's way of giving a stiff nod. So I continue, after giving a pointed glance to the Loki crater between us, whose occupant is stirring and groaning a little: "They're a thousand two hundred ninety four, huh? That's definitely not a kid, over here; it's a _fossil_. Point Break, s'that age still a kid in your place?"

"I do not know what is the meaning of 'kid' that you refer to, Man of Iron, but somebody of that age is no longer a child, if not quite an adult yet," the addressee proclaims tensely, sharply. "And _that_ is _my_ brother's age."

"Damn," Brucey murmurs from beside me, and I barely restrain myself from nodding along to his implied assessment.

Point Break has an _adoptive_ brother, the same age as "Bob's" supposed kiddy baby sibling. The bag of cats that's Point Break's brother is lying there, whimpering, between me and Bob, and his name is _Loki_ , one of the two names that Bob offered for that lost sibling.

Eerie.

But convenient.

Elementary assessment, too. It doesn't need two geniuses to achieve such a conclusion.

Even the act-first-ask-much-later Point Break has noticed, apparently, and now got possessive over his not so wanted, shameful, criminal brother he'd like to cart back to Asgard for judgement as soon as possible. It just needs one itty bitty spark from somewhere _or someone_ to ignite the air simmering between Bob and him, _over Loki_.

Not good.

And now Agent Legolas is _shifting_ his stance as well, following Agent Pretender, and growling like a tiger about to pounce.

Even more not good. Enough intergalactic altercations with alien nobles already! Bob's acknowledgement of their nobility was convoluted as hell, not to mention unfamiliar, but there's no doubt they're a _prince_ , or maybe an equivalent of it in a culture that seems to acknowledge only a single, neutral gender. And two alien princes have wrecked two separate places already on earth; _three_ , if counting the two that Loki wrecked separately. So, "Whoa! Hold your fire, Legolas. We don't wanna have more problems here, do we?"

But, while Agent Legolas freezes up _just_ before he's loosing his arrow, Point Break _doesn't_.

"What manner of trickery is this?" he rumbles and raises his huge hammer, which is now _glowing_ , and it's my turn to _shift_ , especially when he continues with, "Who are you to claim my brother as yours? Show your true skin, jötun! If you want a battle, I shall give you one!"

I really, really don't like it. It sounds _too much_ like what a bully would say to a persecuted someone. Just replace "jötun" with "negro" or whatever and "battle" with "fight" and you'll get a familiar result.

I've got lots of faults, and I will cheerfully confess them all to almost everyone. But an intentional, unprovoked, racist bully isn't one of those.

"Whoa! Point Break, wait up. Who says anything about battle? The battle's _done_. We just need to clean up."

And, maybe stupidly, though I certainly _don't_ have a death wish, I clank over to his place. Toting a hobbling Brucey behind me, as well, because this science bro of mine is still stubbornly attached to my battered armour.

"Let's talk about this _civilly_ , yeah?"

The thunderous look on Point Break's face – _no kidding!_ – is _not_ a good sign for any kind of talk, though.

And the words he spews forth right afterwards, too: "This is _not_ a Midgardian matter, Man of Iron. Do not meddle in the affairs of a prince of Asgard."

And he raises his hammer higher, as if about to throw it across the crater _to bash Bob flat_.

Why, oh why hasn't the kid noticed Reindeer Games yet? I already hinted to them that he might very well be their not so kiddy bbaby sib!

And now Brucey is _growling_ from behind me; as in, _Hulk_ -growling, and I doubt he'll _survive_ a _third_ shift into his alter ego in the same day.

And I'm _not_ about to _lose_ my new science bro.

I want to give poor Bob a chance, too, despite it being with the bag of cats whom the Timebomb Team has spent a few days battling against, _including just now_.

I don't like being talked down to arrogantly by an alien, either. My disastrous bar encounter with Loki, case in point. No different with his adoptive big bro. – And where did the sudden brotherly possessiveness come from? Point Break never acted brotherly to Loki prior to this, and in fact bloody blamed the adoption when Agent Pretender accused the latter of killing eighty people in two days!

"This is earth's matter, _too_ , yeah all right. It's _here_ , after all, and you are _in my tower_ ," I snap back, glaring at Point Break. Then I deliberately turn my back on him and shift Brucey to stand before me, so now I stand between him and that blue hammer on steroids. "Now, kid," I address the petrified teen across the Loki crater, "don't just stand there. Look down _before you_ and just _see_. Could that be your lil sib? His name's Loki. Not so lil anymore, though. Can help you do a DNA test after this, if you want. Got the equipment downstairs. Got so many paternity suits that–."

…I never get to finish my rambling.

There's a huge bang, and a painful ringing, and high-pitched yelps of two voices, and a loud growl, and I'm flying _not on my own volition_ , for the second time already in as many hours; now cleanly across the Loki crater instead of down the tower, _but still_!

I can't move anywhere for a long, long moment. I can't even _breathe_ ; pressed down and _in_ by my own Iron Man armour like this.

But Hulk is growling through Brucey, and bones are beginning to shift _loudly_ there, and Agent Pretender is pleading to and cajoling the green rage monster not to take over for Brucey's health's sake, _and she is failing miserably again_ , so I must do _something_ , anything, for the sake of my science bro's life.

He's been thrown right alongside me, and we're now sprawled on my poor broken floor on the other side of the Loki crater, so it's only a matter of reaching out – weakly, _but still_ – to grasp his ankle with my left hand.

"Hulky, come on, buddy, don't do this to Brucey. We've got this. No need to come out," I force out through my breathlessness. Uncaring of how squeaky I sound; uncaring of the noises of people grappling across the crater that might mean Cap and Point Break are fighting; uncaring of how the other two – those fucking SHIELD agents – are faring; and equally uncaring of the state of my poor, further decimated penthouse.

"Buddy, look at me?" I wheeze pleadingly, tugging at the ankle – that's getting _bigger_ and getting _greener_.

And the body does.

And the eyes are green, angry – _intelligently_ angry – but not for himself.

"Tony hurt," the throat rumbles, in a voice that's not so Brucey anymore. And the face that's now big and also not so Brucey anymore scowls… kinda cutely.

I give the semi-Hulk my warmest, most encouraging smile. "Tony will get better soon. Help me up?"

He does; help me up, that is. And now we're seated side by side on the floor like a pair of knackered, dumbfounded schoolboys gawking at the result of their latest exploded chemistry set, facing the rest of the ruined hall as we are.

Bob is kneeling beside the crater now, _at long last_ , although they look like they still can't directly see into a cornered-looking Loki's face, for some reason. Or maybe they just can't recognise the battered dude despite the huge name-dropping earlier plus the argument.

Agent Legolas is trying to pack up the Tesseract and Loki's staff, now, along with Agent Pretender and Erik Selvig.

They're ignoring how Point Break is now fighting all out with Cap, hammer and shield in play.

Speaking of which, Point Break is demanding that Cap cease fighting, so he – _the berserker_ – can batter "the lying, thieving jötun" with his hammer. And, even more ridiculously, Cap is going on with his determined denial _like a tenacious golden retriever_.

So much for teamwork.

Well, then again, I don't play well with people. And now, I get the evidence that proclaims _so do they_.

"Come on, Brucey, I need your help. Promised Bob I'd help them," I murmur, while nudging the quivering body beside me gently with one shoulder. "DNA test, and then we'll decide what to do next. Two floors below should do for a base camp, I think, to avoid the collapse of this one. Help me move Reindeer Games there?"

I move when, not so trembly anymore, Brucey – who is no longer so Hulky – moves, _at last_.

"Here's Loki, Bob," I tell the kid once Brucey and I manage to crawl to the lip of the Loki crater. "Can't you see? He's looking at you." And Loki _is_ , but there's something wrong – or maybe just different – in his glassy eyes that makes me uneasy. Not the facing-a-dangerous-madman sort of uneasy, at that, which makes it even more unsettling.

I wish I could speak mind to mind to Brucey. But as it is, I look sidewise at that science bro of mine and ask bluntly, "Brucy, look at Reindeer Games' eyes. Do you see anything different? Or is it just me being paranoid?"

The green-tinged brown eyes look back at me; firstly without comprehension, but then with burgeoning interest and alarm.

Brucey looks, _and sniffs_ , and looks back at me with mostly green eyes.

"Green eyes," he reports quietly, intensely, with his voice back at a growling point, just as I take Bob's hand and place it blindly on Loki's shoulder. "They were _blue_ , like Agent Barton's and Mister Selvig's."

Like the two _mind-controlled_ dudes that Reindeer Games himself mind-controlled.

So who is _actually_ the puppet master?

We've been played so masterfully by whoever that is.

Double fuck. Triple damn.

I look back down at my hand, which is still holding Bob's over Loki's shoulder, then trace it to the battered face of a now unreadable-looking Reindeer Games.

"I still don't like you much," I tell him. "But I don't like the idea of jailing the wrong person even more."

From my other side, Bob is murmuring feverishly in an unknown language, while looking down intently – but still rather unseeingly – at a particular spot on Rock of Ages' double-elbowed arm. The sight of the thorough break makes me sick, so I look away, now at Brucey, who is gently touching various spots on Loki's face, neck and shoulders.

"Can we move 'm 'way soon? I don't like the looks of things, bro," I murmur to him, tensing just as Point Break – the _Berserker_ – manages to toss Cap away _yet again_.

"He _can_ be moved. But _I_ am not strong enough to move him without inciting more trauma and pain," is the sardonic answer, so I turn to Bob.

Before I can say anything to the kid, though, Point Break rushes up to us with hammer raised, no longer encumbered by Cap. And the aforementioned kid notices him like they haven't managed to notice Reindeer Games all this time.

I won't forget the blood-curdling scream they let out any time soon.

Utter fear. Desolate rage. – Nope, not the scream of a teenager, _at all_.

Bob throws themself _into_ the crater, on top of a yelping Loki. I got just enough time to note that they're still shorter than Reindeer Games despite the purported elder age, before ice _grows_ all over the two of them, sealing them in what's essentially a transparent coffin.

And then the hammer smites down, _hard_ , over the ice, _over Bob's otherwise unprotected back_ , and it develops huge cracks right away.

Bits of ice rain down on me and Brucey. I can't help remembering the silver-blue blood spraying in those alien wartime clips Bob shared with us, and the silver-blue, blue-black blood and other liquidy stuffs coming out of the giant blue mum. And I can't help thinking, too, ` _Damn. It could've so easily been_ _ **Bob's blood**_ _right there, and maybe even their_ _ **bones**_ _._ `

I open my mouth – to yell at the berserk Point Break, or maybe at Cap who is painfully trying to stand on the other side of this wrecked floor, or maybe at Agent Legolas who is gaping like an idiot beside a still dazed Selvig on yet another side of the floor, or at Agent Pretender who is blithely _texting_ somebody near them. But Brucey – or rather, Hulk-and-Bruce – is faster.

The body shared by those two lunges across the reknitting ice, half transformed, with a roar that's very much Hulk but at Brucey's decibel.

And it's thrown aside like so much rubbish, halfway across to where the SHIELD agents and Selvig are.

It doesn't rise up again. Neither as Brucey nor as Hulky.

I see red, almost literally.

" _THOR_!" I give my own bellow…

…Which turns out to be pathetically _squeaky_ , given how it's so hard even to just _breathe_ in the first place.

Oh, well. At least I can _still_ vent against this berserker who has taken over my supposed teammate's body. Silver lining and all.

Now, for the real stuff: Some good old stoning ought to do it, using the debris littered all round me.

"That huge ice cube _isn't_ an anvil, buddy!" I holler to him, while pitching whatever I can reach more or less correctly towards him. "Stop hitting it!"

I have to duck each time, hard and fast, from all the debris thrown back at me, _charged with crackling electricity_. Good old desperate tenacity – read as idiocy, perhaps, or even lunacy – is the only thing that keeps me going.

And still, without skipping a beat, the hammer falls on the ice mercilessly, which reknits slower _and even slower_ than each previous instance.

Cap is dragging his sorry self along with his semi smoky shield to us, but it's too damn _slow_.

Agent Pretender is at last _moving_ , throwing various pointy things at the Berserker. But _all_ those pointy things fall charged and smoking on the floor just before hitting him.

Agent Legolas' explosive arrow ends up as friendly fire, throwing a painstakingly crawling Cap back while just staggering the Berserker a teensy bit.

My repulsor blasts don't even move him, though I've got to be _thankful_ that I don't get thrown back like Capcicle. Don't have Supersoldier Serum, here!

And then, Agent Pretender has the _bright_ idea to tase an electrically charged alien, just as the surface of the huge ice cube cracks and doesn't knit back up.

The hammer on steroids _glares_ , just as it hits the ice cube for the umpteenth time, and jagged lines of blue and purple and white and red electricity dart everywhere _inside_ of it.

I hope – I _really, truly, desperately_ hope – that the twitches and jerks I see on the bodies inside the ice cube are just the result of my imagination and eyesight gone haywire.

But just in case they aren't….

I stare into Agent Pretender's eyes, shake my head, glare at the taser.

She nods.

She stops.

She stows away the taser, then fishes out a small handgun from somewhere, then fits two incongruously big, fat bullets into it.

And then she fires, twice: once at the Berserker's temple and the other at his back.

She's repaid with the Berserker's total attention, madder than before, with shallow-looking, bleeding holes on the side of his cranium and – _maybe_ – down his ribs.

It's the first time I hear her _genuine_ _ly_ scream in fear, however short the scream is, and I find I don't want to hear that again.

Agent Badarse Girl ought not to be _that_ frightened.

I leave Agent Legolas chasing after the Berserker, who is in turn barrelling after Agent Pretender, and try to figure out how to break apart the ice cube _without_ hurting Bob _and_ their maybe sibling even more.

I try knocking politely at the most intact bit of the ice cube, first. "Hey, Bob? Come out, please? We can go downstairs before anybody sees."

The ice cube, now badly cracked everywhere, collapses into powder in response. But I can't cheer on the success of getting rid of it in a way, looking at and listening to what the Berserker has done to the two inside.

Still draped over Rock of Ages, Bob is _convulsing_ indeed, and whining and whimpering desperately like a very small kid wailing for their mummy or daddy. It's all one word – "api," or maybe "abi," or maybe "abyeh" – and they speak it like a prayer for salvation.

And Reindeer Games….

I didn't appreciate how _sane_ he looked, all throughout our forced acquaintanceship, or how _there_ he was, in comparison to… _this_.

That bruised, bloody face is twisted up into something _worse_ than a grimace or a snarl, with how bloody the teeth and lips and tongue and eyes and ears are. Also, those glassy eyes are just… _glassy_ , although not in death – not _yet_ , perhaps.

"Hey, Reindeer Games? Loki? Not-buddy?" I pat softly but rapidly at the _unmoving_ shoulder, hoping I'm not making some hidden bruise or gash or break worse by doing so – but where _else_ can I nudge him that's not covered by Bob or a visible injury? "M'on. Don't leave yet. You've got to confirm for Bob first, at least. They went all the way from that wherever place to reconnect with you, y'know. You're one lucky bastard… and I mean that figuratively, of course."

And then, I hear the crunch of _bones_ from somewhere far away, and Agent Pretender's _wail_ , and Agent Legolas' _howl_ , and my mind blanks out for a moment.

Now I know what people refer to by a human's hindbrain – primal instinct, lizard's brain, whatever.

Yeah, we're all still apes at heart. – Survival first, survival of the fittest, and all that crap.

Now I believe those vids where mums got cars away from their kids' bodies and all, too, 'cause, somehow, _I've done it_.

I don't know when I moved, how I moved, _how I managed to move all these injured people_ _ **including myself**_ , but _I've done it_.

It's the eightieth level of the tower now, and I'm slumped half upright beside the elevator, sans my half-useless armour and holding a twitchy and delirious Bob in my arms. Reindeer Games is lying sprawled on the floor beside me, unmoving and staring vacantly, while an equally unmoving but close-eyed Brucey is lying half curled into himself at our feet. Cap and Selvig and the two SHIELD agents are seated in equal disarray across the narrow front hallway.

And for a long moment we just exchange dazed, wide-eyed looks.

There's a limit even to the seasoned spies, it seems, and to my runny mouth as well.

Agent Pretender twitches – and lets out a tiny, rabbit-like whimper – when a faint crash sounds far overhead. The twitch is shared by Bob, who is still lying in my arms, who is still whimpering shamelessly perhaps for their daddy or mummy.

Cap's eyes meet mine.

"We should… move," he whispers.

I stare pointedly at him, too exhausted even to raise an eyebrow.

"Where…." He goes glassy-eyed for a moment, but then seems to shake himself awake internally. "Where's the medical section? Do you… do you have that here?"

I give him a short hum-grunt, imitating Bob from earlier, too tired to nod.

And then the crashes sound more often, _and closer_.

"Let's… let's just go. Let's try," I slur out. "We… can't stay here. I…."

Erh, what should I say next?

What did I just say, for that matter?

The world feels so far away….

Something seems to touch my shoulder. I give my eyes a blink.

But no, _my eyes are shut_. Of course they can't blink. Did I… fall asleep? Unconscious? Did I just faint? Without knowing that I had the pleasure of imbibing copious amounts of alcohol prior to that?

"M'wake," I mumble under my hitchy breath, past the sluggishness of my brain, past the horrible pain on my chest, past the twitchy burden still draped against my front.

"Good," Cap's voice laughs a little – raggedly, completely mirthlessly, from inches away near my left shoulder. "The crashes… they're getting closer, Mister Stark, and I can… I can hear _him_ screaming for cowards and something else to come out and face him, _still_ ; little faint, but still…," he continues, in a rambling, unsteady tone alien to my ears. "The tower's shaking, can't you feel that? And rain's pouring by the bucket outside, too, I saw… saw that. Wind and thunder and all." His hand tightens slightly on my shoulder, and it _trembles_. "We're trapped, either way, unless there's a safe escape tunnel or something out… outa here. You know this place best. What do we do?"

A part of me wants to tease him about ceding control to an unworthy soul or something like that. But, thankfully for us all, I guess, I feel too beaten up – figuratively and literally – to make any quip _and_ toss it to him.

I loll my head away from him, then address the thin air, with my eyes still closed, "Jarvis? Jay? You there, buddy?"

"I am, sir," comes the answer, in the mild British manner I programmed my best baby that long time ago. But now there's some definite _tenseness_ in there that I never even dreamt of programming, and it makes my figurative hackles rise.

"What's up, buddy?" I urge him. "What's the status? Get the bots here to help everyone go downstairs while you're at it. I want us _all_ safe in the next five mins or so, _including you_."

He obliges me, on both counts.

And my eyes pop open in sheer terror and astonishment when, after the boring parts of the status report – such as weather outside of the tower – have been recited, he proceeds to say, "The highest twelve levels have collapsed to the storeys below them, sir, at least partially. The collapser has been making a ragged tunnel to the lower levels with the electricity-generating hammer he wields. Unfortunately, I cannot provide you a more in-depth assessment of the damage and the detailed actions of the collapser. I had only rough glimpses of what was occurring instead of full recordings, due to the chaotic electric and magnetic fields the hammer generated, before my connection was cut out completely by eighty-nine-point-five-percent overload and ten-point-five-percent physical damage. The collapser is currently on the eighty-seventh level and working down towards the eighty-sixth, sir. Given the situation, I have taken the liberty to enact nuclear protocol for surveillance and defence purposes on all the intact lower levels, aboveground as well as underground. Do you wish to override it, sir?"

"No no no," I manage to squeak out, just as Cap butts in, tense and wild-eyed, "I'm sorry, but who _and where_ are you?"

"It's… it's Jarvis," I ramble, even as my mind galvanises itself to _think_ , think think think. "He's my bot, my AI, my electronic butler, my surveillance and defence system and advisor, my workshop assistant…." ` _…My only constant friend, the last remaining bit of my family, my stupid sentimental attempt to revive my first ever –_ _ **and never a betrayer**_ _– father figure…._ ` "He got eyes and ears wherever I am. No worries, Capcicle. You're safe with him around."

"Pleased to meet you, Captain Rodgers," JARVIS pipes in, still rather nervy. "I assure you, I mean no harm to you, as long as you do not mean harm to Sir and those he gives protection to."

Cap's eyes meet mine, but he's the one who looks away.

The tower shakes – _again_ , maybe, if Cap's claim is true. More crashes follow.

Agent Legolas' eyes meet mine, now, stormy blue instead of electric blue. Then he looks meaningfully to the side, beyond where he and Agent Pretender rest their bottoms, to where the blue cube and fancy stick-spear have been discarded.

Their blue lights are brightening and dimming in tandem, like a pair of in-sync hearts.

Damn. Crap. Fuck. Hell.

"Damn mind-control things," I manage to get out.

"So you think Point Break is mind-controlled by any – or _both_ – of those?" Agent Legolas' eyes are hooded, now; hooded but piercing in a way.

"No." It's Agent Pretender who pipes up instead, from beside him, her voice thready and struggling to sound calm, matter-of-fact. "He's… similar, to Doctor Banner's alter ego. He… he _liked_ it." Her voice hitches. "He…. I don't think he _recognised_ me, when he chased me around your penthouse, Mister Stark."

My chest clenches in empathy, but also burns with offence.

I catch her eyes and hold them fast.

"No," I tell her quietly, fiercely, matter-of-factly. "You're wrong. Hulk _knows_ me. How would he catch _and revive me_ , otherwise?"

She looks away.

I look away, as well, feeling somehow guilty.

Given that, I'm terribly relieved when the doors to one of the lifts open and my bots pour out, from the largest to the smallest. I direct my two Iron Man armour helpers to get Brucey and Agent Pretender downstairs. But since the latter demurs, I fill the slot with the – probably dead – Reindeer Games.

Well, I hope otherwise, really, somehow; that Loki's not dead, that is.

I don't want to think too badly of Point Break, despite everything, and Bob's yet to have a chance with their probable, not so kiddy lil sib, and I'm yet to get to the bottom of this mind-control business, _too_ , so Reindeer Games had better stay alive.

And speaking of mind control….

"Dum-E, You, fetch two of the strongest containment boxes from Brucey's to-be lab. Overlap them into two sets if you manage to find those in different sizes. Follow Jarvis' instructions, buddies, don't dawdle, and be good about it. It's not playtime yet."

Butterfingers, meanwhile, is already helping Agent Pretender totter along to the bank of lifts, with Agent Legolas at her other side. After the doors open again, spitting out my huge assistants sans their previous burdens, They vanish into it in turn.

"Did you put Bruce and Loki in our nuclear bunker, Big Buddies?" I ask the large bots, as I help Cap get a spasmy, clingy Bob into the arms of one of them. On their beeped affirmations, I order them to add to the stock of medical and survival necessities in the bunker after delivering Bob there. "No worries about me, buddies," I insist, as the remaining free bot tries to usher me into his arms. "I'm going down with Cap and our booty. Just go and prepare everything, 'kay? Remember, _all_ medical and survival kits, as long as nobody else is using those. Food and water are included, by the way. Just follow Jarvis, 'kay?"

They go away.

The tower shakes again.

The crashes get nearer.

"The collapser is on the eighty-fourth level now, sir," is Jarvis' tense report when I request it of him.

Cap and I look at each other, with the two fuck-to-hell pieces of alien tech sitting on the space between us – now dim, now bright, now in-between.

He looks so young.

He looks hurt, betrayed, helpless.

I look away.

I forgot that, however sainted and awesome Dad made him to be, he's after all just someone fresh into full adulthood.

Dum-E and You choose a very, very good time to reappear, shooting out of the lift doors, each clutching two of my special boxes in their pincer arms.

"M'on, Cap," I murmur to the other flesh-and-blood sentient in the room, when my two bots are done with the cube and the sceptre. "Let's go down to the bunker. We've got high-tech stretcher capsules there, too. We can get out via my secret way if worse comes to worst."

I never look at him again, not even once, even when we're crowded inside the shaking, creaking metal box, shooting down the shaft under the cables' doubtful mercy, on the way to a questionable shelter.


	2. Chapter 2

Worthy  
By Rey

Chapter notes:  
At last, by the coaxing and wheedling and cajoling of lots of people, my muse bowed down to the populace and got me this new chapter. So, kudos to you who got this story going!  
The rating has been bumped up to PG-13 approaching R, though, kind folks, so please beware. Tony Stark refused to cooperate with me and defiantly thought a few too adult thoughts _plus_ swore more than before, that's why. The rating is also (for this chapter) discovery about body modification and non-sexual body exploration.  
Additionally, please pay attention to the warnings and info in the tags, folks. This chapter is definitely more _colourful_ , characterful and odd than the previous one.  
Oh, and the bolded words/phrases in the usual dialogues are spoken in a foreign language, while the all-bold dialogues are written via text messages. Also, the bits of different language you will find in this chapter are _interpreted_ as the hearer (Tony) thinks, so they don't really match the real deal – not till he gets to learn that language, at any rate.  
All said, I hope you'll enjoy the ride!

Chapter tags: Tony Stark Feels, Past Character Death, Reincarnation, Past Lives, imposter syndrome, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Past Domestic Violence, Past Child Abuse, Protective Siblings, Unexpected Family Relations

Chapter summary: If Tony Stark is inside Iron Man, then what is inside Tony Stark? And how in the universe is it triggered to come out _only_ after 40 years of being sort of normal?

Chapter 2

The nuclear bunker, which could become a shelter in case of other kinds of disaster as well, had been built, kitted up and stocked for a lengthy seige _before_ the tower was even erected. People may say I'm reckless, spontaneous, fickle, selfish and the like, and they are true on some level, but I _always_ take care of those under my responsibility with all my best. My people should have easy access to safety during shitty things like this, and I don't regret the expenses I shelled out for the best equipments and long-lasting stocks for this place before it's ever needed.

I do regret the lack of ample and comprehensive medical support and supplies, though, even after my two Big Buddies have scrounged up all medical and survival items from all the remaining floors.

As it is, we have to _queue_ one by one for the use of the single medical scanning room I designed and set up here last year. And worse, there are only _two_ life-support systems available.

"We're still alive, you know," Cap says quietly, as I clumsily try to hook Reindeer Games – who is, somehow, miraculously, _still alive_ , and whose eyes are now closed – up to one of the two life-support systems, cursing to myself all the while. He raises his eyebrows when I give him a scathing glare, and continues to insist, "Pessimistic view has its merits, Mister Stark, but not always."

I scoff, but don't reply. Got the excuse, too: Brucey is stirring on the bed to the right, groaning softly. Time to help him come back to the waking world and have some water.

I relinquish my paltry attempt at being a paramedic to the field expert, when he's not so woozy anymore. Got the excuse, too, this time, by way of JARVIS' preternaturally calm report: "The collapser has reached the eightieth level, sir."

The eightieth level. The level where we were _just_ _ten_ _minutes ago_.

"He works fast," I comment in the same tone, while tucking the thermal blanket round Bob's still trembling frame, lying on the next bed over to the left, the only other place which also features a life-support system. "What's the status outside now, Jay? Is our escape hatch on ground level still good?"

"The thunderstorm is still pouring, sir, and visibly focused on Stark Tower. Flooding is nearly a certainty by now. I would advise that you use the underground tunnels to vacate the premises should it be necessary, rather than the escape hatch on ground level."

"Oh great," I mutter gloomily, wishing I could stomp my feet while making a beeline to the large viewscreen mounted opposite the hospital corner, in front of which the two SHIELD agents are gathered, apparently finished with the scanning cubical already. "They're gonna blame it all on me."

"Well, you're the one who _chatted_ with that third alien, for all you rarely made a sound," Agent Legolas snarks, just as I reach the viewing bench. "Regret that yet, Stark?"

"I regret many things today, but not that," I snark back, as I park my bottom on the very end of the bench, opposite Agent Pretender. "Regret following me down here yet? Could always join the collapser upstairs if you want."

He flips me a tired bird and snorts. "Was there, you know, when he's here the first time," he says in a more neutral tone, with his eyes glued on the scene of the courtain-like rain outside of the tower that the viewscreen is displaying. "Was in New Mexico. Heard he's made ' _mortal_ ', however it happened. I'm… not really surprised. But yeah, this is kinda extreme, even for him."

"Tell me 'bout it," I huff bitterly. "My tower survived Loki and the Chitauri, but it doesn't survive one of its own _invited_ guests."

My eyes have strayed away from the viewscreen, and now got glued on Agent Pretender, who is seated past Agent Legolas. She notices my attention and _doesn't like it_ ; not in her usual politely or distantly hostile manner, at that. She's regarding me with surprising tell-tale tenseness on the corners of her eyes and overblown pupils, as if I were some nightmarish monster come to finish her off now that she's brought to her weakest point in our whole acquaintance. And indeed, she can't even sit fully on her own power, leaning so heavily against the wall beside her like that. Adrenaline crash coupled with accumulated injuries and exhaustion, doubtless.

I'd prefer her pretences over this… this… _humanity_ of hers, still. My expectation – faith? Hope? Bleh – has already been badly shaken with how Cap was _frightened_ by the Berserker's ravages. And now… _this_.

I look away, get back up and shuffle my way to the scanning room. – The time to break down is not _now_ , if ever there's one in my life. (Stark men are made up of iron, after all, as dear Dad said.)

Well, but, regardless, the results of the scans are _aweful_ , and I can't help wondering to myself how am I still vertical despite everything, made of iron or not.

Of course, then, my body chooses to collapse.

For that, I blame those cold, cold details provided in the scanning room's report of my present health.

Noises and sensations drift in and out of my awareness, like a badly out-of-tune radio, and I vaguely notice that somebody – or maybe two? Three? – is carting me away from the scanning cubical, fumblingly, before a softer horizontal surface greets my battered body. I let out a groan when I feel a brush – or maybe a pat? – on my shoulder, but can't do anything else.

Pathetic.

What would the world do with a broken Iron Man?

Well, maybe, what they always do with _other_ broken tools. I'm not special, after all, when all is said and done; I _do_ know that.

My mind blanks out for a while. I notice it only because, suddenly, there's a certain pressure along my right side, and it _shifts_ , without me ever realising that it has been there in the first place.

"Wha?" I mumble – or mean to mumble, anyway, since I can't even do that much.

But, apparently, the message somehow gets across, because someone – an increasingly familiar someone – is speaking now, as if in response to that response: ` _Rest, Amma. Amma is safe, for now. There is yet time. Rest and heal, Amma._ `

"Amma? Who?" I want to ask, to think on, to demand. But all that I can do is apparently slipping back into oblivion, because things have… changed, _again_ , when next I'm more or less awake. I don't know why I can sense it, or _how_ , but the ambience has gone _tenser_ instead of more relaxed, though nobody seems to be speaking or making a sound.

And there's no longer an inexplicable weight set against my right side.

The feeling of loss that ambushes me on that realisation is equally inexplicable.

And the _lack_ of pain and ache and soreness, _too_ , as I try to move and find it _all too easy_ , as if I just _fell asleep in my bed_ after a good day of tinkering.

I sit up, blink open my eyes.

And the view that immediately greets me is the guarded gaze of _a stranger_. One similar-looking to Bob in more ways than two, but still _a stranger_.

How did a stranger sneak in here? From where? When? Why? For what purpose? Are they _insane_? People _fled_ New York City when the Chitauri poured out from that hellhole! And there's also the collapser….

 _The collapser_!

My eyes widen, as they _didn't_ in response to looking at this brand-new complication in the shape of Bob's probable relative.

And they widen even more when I notice that, past the shoulder of the stranger, the viewscreen shows the rain _still pouring_ outside.

And I can _feel_ the room tremble…. Or is it just me?

I look round. – Nope. Not just me. Everyone's _unnerved_. And speaking of whom, so _glad_ to see, too, that there's just _one_ single addition to the rag-tag crew I've accrued.

Sarcastically speaking, of course.

"Anybody wanna explain what's going on now?" I ask the room at large.

But… my voice….

"Huh?" I frown. My voice! Not even a sliver of a bed-croak in it, as if I were just gone for a literal minute's worth of shut-eye. And it's _changed_ , too; still mine on some level, but smoother, rather androgynous, and something else that I can't really grasp. This can't be true… can it?

"J, how long was I out? And while you're at that, who carted me here? … And, where's Bob? Think I saw'em…. – Oh."

A light brown eye briefly, _shyly_ peeks from behind the shoulder of the latish teen that's still standing at the foot of the bed I've been involuntarily occupying all this while. And it's been–

–"Five hours, twenty minutes and forty-five seconds, sir," or so JARVIS says.

And then he goes on to say that _Bob_ , who is hiding behind their… _elder sibling_?!… was one of the pairs of hands I dimly remember carting me out of the scanning room, other than Cap and Agent Legolas.

Well, to all that, what I can say is: "Huh."

And perhaps most appropriately, there's a sudden – if short – explosion of mirthless laughter from the viewing bench, from Agent Legolas who seems to have been there all these hours.

I shake my head, wipe a hand across my eyes, and, "Huh," comes out again. (But then, _that's_ also what my current mental state is, _still_.)

Apparently, things have been too bizarre even for my most unusual mind, lifestyle and expectations that, for once in recallable history, I've been made speechless _both_ externally and internally, _for an extended length of time_.

"Huh."

Awkwardly, I get up from the bed, wander about the little bunker hall we're in, pretend to note where all the bots and humans – and non-humans – are, _try to ignore all the attention trained on me_.

And try to ignore how my centre of balance has shifted, _as well_ , plus how oversensitive my senses have become. (It's like being drunk while half-concussed, like that one time at uni, but being painfully sobre at the same time!)

But in the end, there's nothing else to do that doesn't require me to think or to say anything, and the inexplicable attention still _doesn't let go_ , forget all the other changes.

"Sthere something on my face?"

I park my bottom huffily on the nearest seatable area… which happens to be the foot of Reindeer Games' bed… who happens to be _still_ unconscious, though thankfully with eyes closed instead of the blank-eyed stare he firstly sported.

"What happened after I conked out? Anybody?" I insist when, even after a while, everyone just _stares_ at me. "Did me conking out create some havoc I didn't know? Or did somebody paint something on me?"

Nobody lets out a peep, _still_.

"J?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Wanna explain?"

"About what, sir?"

 _Great_. Even _JARVIS_ acts blatantly evasive.

"Don't get smart on me, old boy," I growl at the nearest CCTV camera.

"I am not, sir," comes the calm, cool-as-cucumber answer, which just raises my hackles up and makes me more nervous.

"Agitation is not good for your health, Mister Stark," Brucey quietly interjects, just as I'm readying myself to berate my wayward boy. "Maybe not usually," he amends when I give him a look, "but certainly now. It's a marvel that you managed to get us all here, when you yourself were in such condition."

"So, we can begin from that," I drawl, gritting my teeth and unable to prevent my right leg from jigging a little, even as the hands that I hide behind my back curl into fists. "I read that report from the scanning booth. What _happened_ – what kind of _miracle_ got me that I managed to recover in just _five hours_?"

"Even better than I was before," I want to say, but refrain. Any leverage, however freaky it is, is a good leverage to have.

Silence answers me, even though Brucey still looks at me steadily, with Hulky's green tinge lurking passively behind his brown eyes.

The SHIELD duo refuse to meet my irritated stare. Cap's the same. Selvig….

Well, Selvig looks shocked, and _awed_ , and a little bewildered, and quite intrigued, as if he dug idly in his backyard and found some precious, rare gem instead of more dirt.

Or as if me drunkenly messing up with coding and programming and dreams and imagining and hopes and all and getting _JARVIS_ as the result.

I raise an eyebrow at him in pointed question: Why the _surprise_? After all, much of my life has been gossip fodder for the public since me being a bump in my mum's belly, and there's nothing new about me that I've revealed thus far, accidentally or not.

But in response, he clamps up, _visibly_.

That only riles me up to new heights.

Leaving my perch on Reindeer Games' bed, I stalk up to the scientist's seated self on the viewing bench and glare down at him from my vantage point of wapping 160 centimetres. (Maybe… but he does look small from up close here….)

"Why the surprise?" I repeat out loud. "Something funny on my face?"

He shakes his head.

I lean forward.

He leans back.

I poke the tip of his nose with a finger.

He cringes. As though I were going to _punch_ him. And he does look _terrified_.

"What's wrong with you?"

He shakes his head, even more vigorously than before.

I scowl at him, now exasperated and confused, not only irritated.

But before I can poke him or demand things or whatever else, a tiny, timid, quavering voice sneaks into my hearing: "Amma?"

This word again… and in _Bob's_ voice, at that.

I whirl round, abandoning my fruitless interrogation on selvig to stare at… well, to _try_ to stare at Bob, to be exact, since the only one I find where their voice originated is the yet nameless newcomer…

…Who is tight-faced, with an odd, blank expression that's typically plastered on the face of terrified underlings who tried so hard to be brave in the face of my ire, when I got dragged to some SI factory after a major machine got smashed by careless or ignorant fingers.

And when I stalk up to them, the expression that they sport now is one that a few sticky-fingered SI employees sported when I sicked myself _and_ my lawyers on them.

But somehow, I find it _nauseating_ when that chalk-white, I'm-entirely-dead look is plastered on the face of this teen – this _total stranger_.

It's even worse when I spy their overall – this one dark green-brown, like their widened, petrified eyes – being tugged back on the sides, as if someone got a death-grip on it from behind.

Because, last I knew, _Bob_ was somehow hiding behind this one. And _Bob_ should _not_ be terrified of _me_. Hell, they acted like some fairy-tale royal _prince_ the first time we met!

This situation is getting weirder and weirder by the second, and _I don't like it_.

"Bob? Where're you?"

A squeak answers me, sounding so scared and helpless that I find myself move to where it comes from without any conscious decision.

But the newcomer moves with me, keeping Bob hidden from view, _away_ from me.

"Not gonna harm the kid, y'know," I snap at them, but the heat and bite are absent from it, alongside the irritation that firstly propelled me to try to interrogate Selvig.

Only the confusion remains, _and it keeps growing_.

Especially when, after giving me a glare that seems to be a mixture of terror and distrust, the newcomer does step aside, and I clap eyes once more on Bob.

Only to find _a little kid_ in Bob's place, with Bob's face and Bob's clothes and Bob's hair and Bob's eyes. (Minus the terror in them. That _wasn't_ present before.) They're barely _nine_ – if even that!

"Ah, Bob?" I squawk, then wince. I meant to be… professional; a good host, as Mom always drilled in me since before I'd known what "host" means.

"Amma?" the kiddy Bob squeaks in reply, in the same timid, wavering tone that I don't care to analyse deeper. But I notice it anyway, and see for myself how half of them is leaning towards their supposed elder sibling while the rest seems to lean tentatively towards me.

My shoulders slump, despite my best attempt to salvage my bearing. The vitality that greeted me on awakening seems to drain away past the bare soles of my feet, past the granit-tiled floor into the faintly trembling earth.

Things are even _more_ confusing, now. – Why's Bob so small? Why do they keep calling me "Amma"? What happened in the quarter of a day I spent involuntarily snoozing? What should I do now? What _can_ I do now? What's with this addition to our rag-tag bunch? How did they get in here? From where? What for? Do they mean us – though maybe not their little sibling – harm? Do they wish to cart Rock Of Ages back to their homecountry to face justice or something, like Thor? – So many questions!

So, to _hopefully_ simplify matters, I choose to refocus myself on something more… mundane; and a little less confusing, too, not to mention probably the root of all the tangled questions.

Or rather, I choose to focus on _someone_ , namely the stranger Bob's still clinging to with all their might.

"Who are you? What's your name? When did you come here? How? Why? What for? Anybody coming after you? Do Mummy and Daddy know the both of you are here?"

The stranger _straightens_ , like some soldier at attention. They still look terrified out of their mind, though, so the effect is like some righteous soldier facing the evil firing squad with decorum.

I feel even more nauseated than before.

But then they talk, and I force myself to watch and _listen_ – to the undercurrents and hidden meanings and mismatched expressions, like Dad and Mom and Obi – dear traitorous, murderous, damn ruthless Obi – taught me.

Not that it helps much, it turns out ….

"I am the first womb-child of Farbauti Faukkistr-childe, spouse of Laufey Bergelmir-childe, Monarch of Ýmirheim. I am Helblindi _Farbauti-childe_ ," They say. Monotonely delivered. Odd emphasis. Odd address of their… mother?

"I came when… when… about 'five hours, twenty minutes and forty-five seconds ago', when **Matya** was… asleep," they continue. Valiantly. Ignorant, but still trying to be exact, _but_ trying to play down _my_ bout of weakness – _huh_? And my name is _not_ "Matya"!

"I Walked along one of the passages leading to this realm and proceeded to Think myself here, with Býleistr as the guiding beacon… because… because… Helblindi did not know yet that **Matya** was here – **shletara** , Helblindi did not manage to sense **Matya** being here." The neutral explanation is now a personal plea. "Helblindi Farbauti-childe" is obviously terrified of… _my_ wrath? What the–!

"Helblindi came because Býleistr called. Helblindi did not know that **Matya** would be here. Helblindi would have prepared… something… to welcome **Matya** back, if Helblindi knew. But please, this is not Býleistr's fault! Býleistr just did not have… time… to tell Helblindi. Please, **Matya** ," they desperately tries to explain themself, while defending themself and their little sibling from… _me_? Or their mum? Or their mum that they – _the both of them_ – have rather convincedly mistaken as me? – But Bob concealed their name for a reason! Won't this jeopardise Bob? And Helblindi, too? Can I call Bob with that supposedly secret name, then?

And then, a split second later, they plod on. "Helblindi came to… to… to assist in retrieving… the little one." But why not say the name and relationship outright like Bob did? Didn't Bob update their big sibling once they're here, if not before?

With a mental shrug, I continue to listen and observe, despite – or maybe _because of_ – my mounting alarm and trepidation.

And Helblindi continues to be baffling, as well as increasingly desperate and terrified.

"As far as…. Erh, Helblindi meant, _nobody_ tracked Helblindi here, but Helblindi could be mistaken, because Helblindi came in s-somewhat of a haste here." They're trying too much to be firm and exact, _again_ , and far too scared to be blamed for _a random chance_. Their mum must be – or _have been_ – quite a piece of work.

" **Pabutya** and the others did not know that Helblindi is here… nor did they know that Býleistr is here. We meant it to be _secret_." They tell that last word as if it should be meaningful _to me_ , that _I_ should be _pleased_ about all the secrecy and exactness and formality and avoidance of certain topics.

They tell it all _for me_ , not only _to me_ ; trying to stroke my ego, trying to convince me, trying _so hard_ to be likeable. But I'm not… whoever "Amma" or "Matya" is! And I don't know who Helblindi is – or even Bob!

And who – outside of not so real of a story – ever answers _all_ the questions with such precision and thoroughness? _In one go_ , at that?

For all the _un_ holy things in the world…! They've just made me _more_ confused!

I swipe a tired hand over my face, straighten up, take a deep, deep breath, then ask my question; the question that, in all the terrified narration, _hasn't_ been answered: " _Why_ do you and your sibling think that I am your… that I am 'Matya', or 'Amma', or some such? I don't even know what those words mean!"

 _Both_ of the kids flinch on my exclamation. But unfortunately, other than that, and some fish-on-dry-land mimicry by Helblindi, nobody speaks. _Just like before_.

"Is that so _hard_ to answer?" I grit out after a few heavy intakes of breath, trying to curb my exasperation and impatience for the sake of the rapidly paling Helblindi.

"Amma is… Amma," Bob offers tentatively, _at last_ , and continues when my attention is on them, "Býleistr and Helblindi grew in Amma's womb, and Amma nursed us … after we… the both of us… umm, Býleistr and Helblindi were born … and we … umm … Býleistr and Helblindi belong to Amma's line, although in the Royal House? Erh, Bý means, although we – _all_ of us – belong to the Royal House…."

Helblindi lets out a squeak on the mention of "all," and takes a few stumbling steps back, dragging their little sibling with them, when my head swings towards them on that mousy sound.

They seem ready to faint – the _both_ of them.

Huh. Farbauti is… or was… truly a piece of work, to induce this level of petrification in their own children. Worse than my parents, by far.

But speaking of children…. "You know," I say, in my levellest, most _un_ antagonistic tone and – hopefully – facial expression, "I don't have any womb." – There's a stifled snort of laughter from somewhere in the congregation of the bafoons I've been forced to call my teammates that I ignore. – "I don't have any girl bits, period. My name is also Anthony Edward Stark, Tony for short, and not 'Amma' or 'Matya' or 'Farbauti'. You've got the wrong person, kids."

Instead of feeling mollified, though, the poor, miserable pair of siblings huddling before me look as if they're doomed to a very, very, very unpleasant fate; worse than facing my irritated, exasperated, impatient self in the perception of the mistaken identity, even.

Thankfully… or not… Cap butts in, _again_ , going as far as coming up to me from the side and tugging lightly at my left elbow. "Come on, Mister stark," he says. "You're frightening them." (But hey! Why does Cap's voice come from… lower than it used to?)

Bob… or Býleistr… _stiffens_ , although I can't rightly guess what's going on in their head right now.

And partly, currently, _I don't want to know_.

I shake Cap's hand off and, while making my way to the insensate Reindeer Games to distract myself, ask JARVIS for the latest status update of the tower and its surroundings.

And, meanwhile, I try _very, very hard_ to ignore the fact that Bob and their elder sibling seem to be following me wherever I go like little ducklings, _and why I know it without any sound audible to my ears_.

The news that the collapser has finally spent his berserker rage on the seventy-sixth story isn't as comforting as I thought it might be, it turns out.

The further news that Reindeer Games' _numerous_ injuries – which would be _fatal_ on a human – haven't shown any improvement is even more daunting.

And then, timidly, in a tiny voice that I imagine a small, scared bunny would sound like, "Helblindi Farbauti-childe" tells me that their " **Pabutya** " is contacting them, no doubt suspicious of their whereabout.

Damn. Crap. Fuck. Hell.

Did I sin so much in another life that I'm punished this way now?

Wait… wrong question.

A very, very, very, very, very, very _wrong_ question.

Flinging oneself on a stool is way less satisfactory than flinging oneself into a sofa, my fucked-to-hell brain dimly notes as everything jostles for immediate attention in my mind. (And the stool _crieks_ , too, as if I weighed a ton. Why?)

The motion's way more graceful than it ought to be, at that, the same useless piece of junk informs me, and I _really, really, really_ can do without that unwanted self-commentary right now… or later… or ever.

Narcissism may be one of my vises, as many say, but not when it can drive me mad _so easily_.

"J," I can hear my mouth flap about, "don't let anybody in here, or anywhere else in the tower but the ones who are supposed to be there, if there's any still. Scout out our routes, too." But I can hardly process what's spewed forth from it.

And then, a ball of meager flesh and heavy, jabby bones deposits itself on my lap, and it's all that I can do _not_ to instinctively fling… _them_ … away.

Judging from the alarmed and worried look that quickly passes over Helblindi's widened eyes, this elder sibling of the said "ball" has the same thought.

Strangely enough, even stranger than many things so far but strangely fitting anyway, the teen's low opinion of me hurts more than any rejection they might deliver to my perceived self, or Cap's insults to me on the hell-e-carrier, or Agent Pretender's "Iron Man, yes. Tony Stark, not recommended," or… well… _so many other things_.

Okaaay, _so_ , I, and me, and myself, should decide on _which_ self to acknowledge, to use in this situation. Because something that's derived from a mistaken identity shouldn't hurt this much, or even _at all_.

And then I'll need to _temporarily_ block _other_ identities out, and think _only_ on the currently most relevant one…

…Like putting on some garment when the occasion requires it, as Mom used to lecture me….

Oh, crap. When did _my life_ turn into garments – with a big plural _s_ on it – that I _must_ change back and forth _for the sake of my own sanity_?

Okay, Stark. Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps. Baby steps, even when the world wants you to take a flying start to the fastest, most endless sprint ever. You already asked your faithful AI to secure the tower, no? Much good as it's been so far… but it can only help, right? So… now… erm….

"Okay, kids, we don't have much time. I'd like to know how," ` _In the universe,_ ` "you came to the conclusion I'm whoever you said, and why _these people_ ," I glare at the battered but alive Timebomb Team – plus one – that's still congregated on the viewing-screen bench, "knew 'bout it before I did. But it must wait. Now let's just secure ourselves an exit from this place with Reindeer Games in tow. Then you need to go elsewhere, probably back home, n'I'll deal with Thor."

Helblindi's mouth opens, as if for a reflexive protest or a retort, or even a suggestion.

I glare at them.

Their mouth shuts back up, right away, complete with an _audible_ click of teeth.

Eh, sometimes, being feared has its perks… although it makes one feel pretty nauseated at the same time….

Doesn't hurt to reiterate an important point, though, right? So, "You _need_ to be elsewhere, 'kay? N'I mean you, Bob and Reindeer Games. My bots can keep you company, but I can't risk Point Break meeting the three of you again."

Well, to be exact, it's the _two_ of them, Bob and Loki, who fit the description of meeting Point Break " _again_ ," but there's no room for pernicketiness right now. And anyway, Bob's already tensing up on my lap – as strange as it feels, having a little kid on my lap for a totally platonic reason, instead of a beautiful woman as the prelude of a good sex! – and I can't afford them lapsing into PTSD-induced reaction when the situation is already so… fragile.

And then, it's all a whirl of busy, confusing action.

And all the while, Bob clings to me like a baby monkey to its mum, mid-jump from tree to tree.

Great. Awesome. Nice. Good.

Anthony Edward Stark: genious, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, reluctant member of Fury's superhero boyband, _monkey mum_.

"Drunken super nanny" is added to the titles as we arrive in our new destination: yet another bunker, but placed miles away from the first one, after a standing ride on the longest and fastest underground conveyer belt ever – I checked! – and a screen of subsonic sound that's meant to confuse _everyone's_ sense of direction. Because, go figure, the pair of siblings _and the unconscious Reindeer Games_ , and _also_ Captain _bloody_ America _and_ Brucey, have an _adverse_ reaction to the said screen.

Me, _too_ , and the implication is _terrifying_.

Well, I don't puke, and nobody pukes on me, or on the carpeting of this far less crude, far more luxurious hideout, but it's a very, very close thing.

I've got to mix anti-nausea shakes for the six _and a half_ affected people (including myself!), based on dear, poor, late old-man Jarvis' recipe, _ASAP_ , and it's _nearly_ not enough time. Well, hopefully I'm helping, instead of poisoning the aliens…. But, _anyway_ , I've got to run here and there: fetching the "secret ingredients" from the kitchenette cupboards _despite my own nausea and dizziness and ringing ears_ ; fetching barf bags for the conscious "patients" _and bringing one with me anywhere I go just in case_ ; rushing to help Brucey _who is half-way a drunkenly irritated Hulky right now_ prop Reindeer Games up, so the latter won't choke on his own vomit in case he can't hold it in; and rushing to prevent Dum-E, You and Butterfingers from trying to "help," _too_.

And all the while, the two SHIELD agents watch me from the sidelines, _and Agent Legolas keeps laughing_ _ **at me**_.

 _Somehow_ , at length, I end up nestled on a huge cushion on the far corner opposite the tunnel-mouth, along with Helblindi, Bob, Brucey-and-Hulky and Reindeer Games. – Helblindi (I think I'll call them D!) is leaning heavily against the wall by my right, tilting closer and closer to me before jerking themself back up into a more or less straight sitting position. Meanwhile, a quarter-lucid Reindeer Games, who is still propped up by a concerned Brucey (and a no longer so drunkenly irritated Hulky), is to my left. And Bob's _still_ clinging to me, now perched once more on my lap.

Cap's sprawled on the cushy carpet beside the cushion along with the two SHIELD agents. But, interestingly enough, Selvig has chosen to remove himself from their huddle, although he was a part of that group while we're in the bunker beneath the tower. He's now seated in a no less comfy desk chair on the adjacent corner of the underground foyer we're in.

Alarmingly, he's looking blankly at the two double-layer lead boxes containing the two alien thingamabobs, which starred in the battle we've recently won, which somehow got placed on the desk before him. – A new kind of mind control? A burgening interest in the power that he might take for himself? But I feel too exhausted to wonder about that for long.

And we are waiting…. For what, I don't know, but we are waiting. And the tension is _back_ in the air. I wish I could push a pause button on the reality so that I could have some rest from it all, _even just for a minute_. Or at least, before reality throws me yet another – or, hells forbid, a _bigger_ – bucket of smelly brown waste with its accompanying mysteries, I'd like to know the answers to the _previous_ questions.

Heh. If only…. Nobody seems to be inclined to do anything, or say anything. And sadly I can't fault them, with how thick and brittle the atmosphere is feeling.

Besides, my head and ears and stomach are still killing me, although with less intensity.

But we aren't totally safe yet, are we? And I've still got to know what's going on with the tower. ( _My_ tower, damn it Thor.)

So, "J? Status of the tower?" I request, ignoring how weak my newfound voice has been reduced by the sonic attack turned friendly fire.

His report is, as usual, delivered in a familiar, soothing timbre, and a British accent that never fails to remind me of old-man Jarvis. And I let it lull me into a much-needed respite.

But then, one of the titbits jolts me out of the reverie, with almost instinctive alarm.

Damn. It brings my physical misery back to life, not to mention waking a previously dozing Bob, who now distracts me _again_ by whining and clinging _closer_. And it's just… _all too soon_.

"Repeat that, J," I ask, while awkwardly patting Bob's back, hoping they'll let go of me soon.

And the AI dutifully says, "On another note, sir, Miss Potts is flying to new York from Los Angeles together with Mister Hogan. The both of them were highly concerned about the news covering the battle. They persisted to come despite all objections. They would like to ascertain the veracity of the news by themselves, as well as assuring themselves of your continued well-being. They will arrive within the next two hours at the tower. Shall I redirect them here, sir?"

` _Pepper_ _ **and**_ _Happy!_ ` is all that I can think of for a long, long moment. And then, ` _It'll be complete with Rhodey here. He can be the Air Force's eyes for all I care. We can go elsewhere for a little while. To somewhere_ _ **safer**_ _, and fun. A bit of normalcy. Screw Fury's plans. I nearly_ _ **died**_ _today,_ _ **twice**_ _._ `

But then Bob stirs in my lap, and my mind screeches to a halt, dragged back into reality. ` _Oops. Damn. The kids! What am I going to do with the kids? What am I going to say to Peps and Happy about them?_ `

Well, come to think of it again, though, Brucey can take care of Reindeer Games and the kids for a while, can't he…? And the others can definitely take care of themselves. I doubt Thor knows where we are, at that, so I don't even have to bother with him right now.

Just to make sure, though, I fish my Starkphone out of my trouser pocket and text JARVIS, with one thumb and a liberal help of predictive text: " **Where is Thor right now?** "

" **The collapser flew away using his hammer without saying anything moments ago, Sir,** " is the immediate answer. " **He is possibly going to try to find Jane Foster, an astrophysicist, who became acquainted with him the first time he came here, according to the SHIELD file on him.** "

` _My. Apparently you are miffer than I am about the uber hole in the tower's floors, J._ _But oookaaaaay then._ ` " **Prepare a hot shower for me in the bathroom here. Get Pepper and Happy to buy me clothes and lots of food too. Basically delay them until it's really safe in and around the tower. And get the measurements of the others here if they want to change too once I'm in the bathroom.** "

And then, it's wranglingBob- _off_ -me time.

Suffice to say, the bathroom at the opposite corner of the little hall, the crammd, humble little one that it is, is a _heavenly haven_ after that. Opposite the plane, flimsy door, the wall boasts just a small shower cubical, a generic toilet seat beside it, and a cabinet of generic – and mostly disposable – bathroom necessities beside the toilet, with a cold-and-warm-water sink on top plus its paraphernalia. And along the wall where the door is, there are just a full-length mirror opposite the sink, and a tiny vanity table with its own mirror beside it, and a wastebasket under the vanity table, opposite the toilet. _But_ here in this tiny room I am _alone_ , and it's unbelievable how I _need_ it at present, after everything and with so many questions still unanswered.

No wonder, then, that for a long, long, long time, I just lean heavily into the cool, hard, snug surface that's the nook between the full-length mirror and the tiled wall running perpendicular to it.

I so need a holiday. A long, long, long holiday. With Pepper. And Happy. And maybe Rhodey, too, if I can pry him out of the Air Force for a while. Oh, and with Brucey as well. And maybe also with the kids if I have to. But _without_ SI and SHIELD matters coming along for the ride.

But, _right now_ , if I take too long in here, it's possible that Bob will just barge in, checking on "Amma" _and clinging to me again_.

Well, then, bye-bye cooling-down session. See you again later. Hopefully very, very, very soon.

"J, make sure the door's locked, 'kay? And turn on the shower."

Sadly, there's no other clothes to change into. But at least there are disposable underwear in the cabinet drawers, among other things. There's a row of pegs behind the door, too, to hang the current ones.

One second under the _supposedly warm_ water, though, and I'm already leaping out again like a scolded cat, wet and feeling like a boiled lobster. "What the–! J, how hot did you set it to?!"

"Your usual prefered temperature, Sir," the AI dares to protest. I give the CCTV above the sink a mighty scowl.

"Your baseline temperature has gone down two degrees Celsius. Maybe that is the cause of your heat intolerance, Sir?" he offers further, and my scowl deepens. – This again!

"And you kept refusing to say what happened to me. Are you going to refuse again now?" I bite out, as I snatch a towel from the cabinet and dab quickly but gingerly at my oversensitive skin.

Unfortunately, I don't get to know what my wayward AI might decide. My hurried hand is quicker than the length of his hesitant pause.

"J, how–. Humans can't grow bits! Mom would've known if I was _also_ a girl! And I certainly would know! And where's all the hair? I don't have boobs but I have… _this_?! Where are my balls? Did someone operate on my bits when I was knocked out? Why didn't you prevent it! How can I turn back? Turn me back! I'll rip out the balls of whoever–!"

JARVIS – the _traitor_ – cuts in before I can finish the sentence, though, let alone the _very, very, very deserved_ and long overdue rant.

"A Miss Laufey is upstairs and asking after her children Helblindi and Býleistr, Sir. Should I let her in?"

"What the _fuck_ , J," I demand, in a strangled voice a few octaves higher than normal, which tips the sound scale from "androgynous" to – _NO_ , no no no no no no no no no. "What changed? _Tell me_!"

"If you stepped into the scanning room by the bathroom, Sir, we could find out together what changed, before you decide on what to do with Miss Laufey," JARVIS says, and I _hate_ him currently for being so _calm_ in this horrible, horrible situation.

And he continues, _in the same tone that makes me feel like a chastised kid after a tantrum_ , despite my most scathing glare aimed squarely at the eye he has in this bathroom. "The equipment here is older than the one under the tower, however, sir, so the result may not be as thorough as if we conducted the scan in the other room. Or would you rather travel back to the tower and conduct the scan there?"

I don't reply with words. I _can't_. Instead, I jam myself back into the appropriate holes in my clothes and stalk out of the bathroom.

Slamming the bathroom door shut behind my back is quite _satisfying_.

The thought of having to repair the just-broken door later, and why has such a simple slamming motion broken it, is less so. But I can't care less about it right now, or about the looks trained on me from more than three pairs of wide eyes.

I snap the door to the scanning room shut behind me with exaggerated restraint, all the same.

The scanning equipment comes to life as soon as I stand still.

Neither JARVIS nor I break the silence long, long after the machines and lights have died down.

I can't unstick my jaw for anything, including speaking, and neither do I wish to.

The evidence that's displayed right in front of me makes me want to puke, that's why.

My height has shot up _four feet_. My weight likewise, although much less drastically. As though I had an extra-quick growth spurt.

Or as though I got injected with a supersoldier serum.

The face that looks back at me from the small viewing mirror in this room can be an indication, in addition to my sudden sensitivity to the subsonic screen in the tunnel leading to this safehouse. I can recognise the general features, sort of, especially my eyes and hair, but to call it truly my own face would be a ridiculous idea. It's… bigger, wider, _more feminine_ , far younger and smoother than before, _and I don't have any hair on it too except for my eyebrows_.

It's like Brucey and Hulky, or like skinny Rogers and Cap, though thankfully not like Schmit and Red Skull.

The only silver lining in the situation.

 _Because_ , how am I going to face Pepper and the others like this? What do all these readings mean, _exactly_? What does this mean to my Iron Man suits? Why didn't all these changes heal my literal heart? What does this mean to my health? What does this mean to SI and my personal estate? What does this really mean _in the long run_? How if Bob and their sibling keep tagging along because of this new look? What am I going to say to the "Miss Laufey" waiting upstairs in the warehouse that's _supposed_ to obscure this safehouse?

How could she pinpoint this particular place as where her wayward kids went to, anyway? The current sanctuary of the Timebomb Team plus-plus, _this particular bunker_ , sprawls below a _complex_ of warehouses that SI owns and uses. It's located just outside NYC proper, at that, in a bigger complex of _more warehouses_ and a few small factories. The place is bland and obscure and privately owned, to boot. _A_ _nd it's closed to visitors_ _ **unless**_ _they are SI employees of this specific warehouse complex_. So who let her onto the property? – If she came here on her own _past the tight security check_ , why hasn't she just barged in down here and abscond with D and Bob with no one else the wiser? Or at least popped in here directly for a visit, like Bob did when we're on my tower?

But… wait… _her kids_.

"J, did the kids tell you about Loo-Fee when I was out of it?" I croak out in a whisper, as if it's been ages since last I spoke.

And, "Only that she is their sire, sir," is the answer, unfortunately.

Damn. It's nothing that I haven't heard before. I even heard _more_ than that, myself, from Bob, ages ago in my ruined penthouse. It feels so strange, for JARVIS to know _less_ than I do, with the internet and various databases in his virtual fingertip.

This must be straightened up first, then, before everything else. We should discuss this, put the both of us on the same page, then make up a game plan. But with many curious ears out there, I can't trust anything spoken out loud.

Well, this means lab-time. And not because I'm making anything there. Joy. The PCs there will really help us exchange info and brainstorm, though, _if_ nobody has hacked into it.

My shoulders slump. There are too many ifs, whats, hows, whos and whys to make even a half-decent game plan.

Still, I trudge out of the scanning booth and across the foyer, ignoring all the eyes trained on me and the murmured conversations gone silent. Fighting the best that I can is better than not fighting at all, that's why, and I've ever experienced something like this before, anyway.

Let's just hope this is _not_ a second Afghanistan.


End file.
